The K-Line Reigns Supreme

From 30,000 yuan to 20 billion: the rise and retreat of a legendary stock god.

In 1993, Chen Ye took the 30,000 yuan in bereavement money his mother had given him and walked into the securities trading office on Jiefang South Road in Jiangcheng.

He stood in a corner of the retail investors’ hall, staring at the electronic screen on the wall as red and green figures flickered across it. He stood there all day. No one could have imagined that this quiet, taciturn young man would become one of the most legendary names in China’s stock market twenty years later: the “Jiangcheng Stock God.”

The limit-up daredevil trading team was his blade, bonus-share schemes were his traps, and listed companies were his pieces on the board. From 30,000 yuan to 20 billion, he thought he had reached the very top of the food chain.

But he didn’t know that from the very first day, a pair of eyes had been watching him from behind the curtains of a second-floor window. Twenty years, 7,300 days, without a single interruption.

When handcuffs were put on him on the Jiangcheng Cross-River Bridge, he finally understood: the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. And he had never been the oriole.

Three years behind bars. His assets wiped out, his wife gone, his mother dead. He read the Dao De Jing and To Live, and reflected on the half of his life he had wasted. At last, he saw clearly: the red and green candlestick charts that had kept him from eating or sleeping were nothing more than reflections of the human heart.

On the day he was released, he said goodbye to Jiangcheng and to the illusion he had spent half his life chasing.

He went to a small seaside town, where he farmed, read books, and watched the sun rise and set.

He remembered 1993, when the ponytailed teller first looked at him. That was the finest chart of his life, but it took him half a lifetime to understand it.